Consent decree warrants superlatives: Stephanie Grace

The superlatives were flying down at Gallier Hall on Tuesday afternoon, when Attorney General Eric Holder, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and other civic and law enforcement bigwigs unveiled the long-awaited federal consent decree aimed at turning the New Orleans Police Department upside down and inside out.

CHRIS GRANGER/THE TIMES-PICAYUNEU. S. Attorney General Eric Holder, right, answers questions about the consent decree with the city of New Orleans as Mayor Mitch Landrieu, left, and NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas, back center, stand by during a press conference on Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at Gallier Hall.

The document is designed to reduce crime and "promote the highest standards of effectiveness, professionalism and integrity," and is the result of "one of the most extensive investigations of a law enforcement agency ever conducted by the (civil rights) division," Holder said.

It's also the "most comprehensive" such agreement, said Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, who oversees the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and who said the NOPD's problems came up in one of his very first on-the-job conversations with Holder.

And Landrieu, whose legacy will be closely tied to the department's success or failure, declared that making New Orleans safe "has been and will continue to be my top priority as mayor."

In the political world, language like that isn't exactly rare. Politicians often tag their efforts or accomplishments as the best, first, or most, if only for rhetorical effect.

This was different. This consent decree, a 492-point outline of steps the department is required to take to heal all manner of ills, really is that big a deal, for the city and for Landrieu. The comments Tuesday came off as an attempt to capture the gravity of the situation.

Left unsaid -- explicitly, anyway -- is that the consent decree is so extensive because the department was so utterly dysfunctional to begin with (that's was, not is, because several officials lauded Serpas for having gotten a head start with the reforms already).

It was negotiated in the shadow of a series of post-Katrina police violence and cover-up cases that the Civil Rights Division successfully prosecuted and that snagged 16 current or former cops, including the perpetrators of the notorious Danziger Bridge massacre. Landrieu said the "sheer thuggery, thievery and callous disregard for the truth displayed by some members of the department in the aftermath of the storm" not only overshadowed the heroism of their colleagues but also "highlighted systems that had completely deteriorated."

And it covers an astonishing array of departmental functions, including some never before addressed in such an agreement. The new ground includes reforms of how cops investigate sexual assault and domestic violence cases and how they deal with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. Also included is an overhaul of the off-duty detail system that a prior Justice Department report deemed an "aorta of corruption." The new rules on details alone comprise 10 of the document's 124 pages.

The document also calls for sweeping changes to how police work is documented, how officers are trained and how alleged or even potential police misconduct is investigated. Use of force is another hot topic, and among other things, officers will be banned from justifying their actions based on "boilerplate" language such as describing a suspect's "furtive movement" or "fighting stance."

As much pressure as it puts on Landrieu's administration, many of the requirements are in his sweet spot. Landrieu's a sucker for the sort of benchmarks and statistics that allow him to quantify progress, and the consent decree is chock full of them.

More pressure will come from the search for money to pay for all the changes. Although federal grants might be available, Landrieu estimated the city's cost at about $11 million for each of the next four years. That'll put pressure on the City Council too, which must decide whether to cut other programs or seek new revenue, starting with this fall's budget processing.

Perhaps ironically, the document opens by spelling out that the voluntary agreement between the Justice Department, city and NOPD does not constitute an admission of guilt or liability.

It doesn't need to. Evidence of years of cultural insensitivity, mismanagement, substandard practices are clear throughout. The consent decree's starting point is a department at its absolute worst, and there's only one direction to go: up.